it doesn't feel like Christmas eve.
i don't mean in the 'it just came so fast, we just put the tree up yesterday, this year went by oh so...'
i mean normally there is hustle and bustle, running around... perhaps i'm used to coming home from school every day and seeing the tree, or picking up the tree after adventurous cats hath scaled it... but Christmas eve entails anticipation, watching A Christmas Story on TBS at 7pm, watching half of it again, various activity, then going to bed.
i stay up in my room...
and everything becomes still.
i can go outside and the stars tell me to go rest,
i walk into the living room, turn on the tree and see the glitter...
while my mom is up later than usual causing me to lack that peace, it just doesn't feel right.
maybe i'm growing up.
but i already halfway did that...
however 'grown up' isn't necessarily sleeping in the same cluttered room you have occupied for the past 16 years, nor is it reading comic books all day because the only other thing there is to do is join your mom while she watches Christmas love stories on the Hallmark channel.
what is home, anyway.
especially when family togetherness is watching tv while eating dinner.
so many years ago i tried to start family traditions, game nights, going places, doing things...
but we didn't then.
seems to me that mom wants that now, yet it just isn't so.
hmm, mom said there wasn't anything this year i could really get excited about under the tree, then again i don't really get excited about anything.
it's true. i don't.
with people around, least ways.
besides, ha, no one really knows me well enough to get me that excited.
except for You, Lord, haha!
and even my mom doesn't know me, can't read me, no surprise there...
yet somehow some people know me for two seconds and know the kind of person i am, that side of me i suppose is the 'open' portion of a johari window. or perhaps it just rubs off when i accidentally bump into someone at the mall. they just know.
perhaps if i stay up long enough the anticipation will get to me...
then again, mom told me this year most of the things she bought for me were on my list.
she asked me for a list.
i gave it to her.
and for the first time in my life she paid attention to it.
woah.
had this happened years ago i'd be playing the violin in a house made from legos with a roof crafted from logic puzzles.
and moon shoes. i would have had moon shoes.
but Christmas has never been about that, it's the time of year my house doesn't seem cluttered because the Christmas decor makes the room seem neat, it's laying under the tree and looking at the lights, going to grandparents house for new years...
it's when you have a reason to feel warm and fuzzy, a time you try and be with your family more, a time for memories.
but here's the thing: back then i was focused on staying where i was. grasping what i had because life would not always be begging if i could open a present, taking great pains to wrap a present perfectly, putting the cat in with the holiday stuffed toys and making people jump when the cat moved, Christmas crafts at school...
i wanted to hold on then, i turned a blind eye to not having friends at school and being yelled at mostly because i didn't know any better, i just wanted people to smile and i grabbed onto simple things to keep me smiling.
ha, like that old worn 'santa clause' star i made in preschool. faded, the gold foil star belt buckle falling off, whisps of cotton left where his hat was. i put it on the tree every year. mom one year said she didn't like it, i was downcast because i made it. it wasn't much, but i put it on the tree.
i had memories tied to everything.
i don't see these things much anymore.
memories slip away.
not much to hold on to now is there?
perhaps it is these memories that leave me, ones that i did not know were a part of the season until they left, that make it not feel like Christmas.
yeah, thanks nativity set, you knocked me a good one and made my gums and lip bleed because you, the train set, old Ms. Claus that mom never liked but i saved from the garage sale, those little porcelain mice, the ornament we got from sears that i loved so much, the one that dad took special care to put the little Christmas tree back in, the old 6-ft tree mom and dad bought a $300 pre-lit tree to replace without asking me, then gave MY tree away and i was so distraught they gave the $300 tree to the people they gave my tree to and got my tree back, and the bajillion stockings i used to hang everywhere... you all miss me.
well, i miss you too.
(and there's a lot more behind that than missing just 'things')
haha, oh, the simple things...
hmm.
my mom is asleep now.
i have a feeling that a long hot shower and a ridiculous talk with myself in the mirror will make it feel like Christmas.
not Christmas like it used to be.
but how it needs to be for now.
you know, i think since i was so alone that some 'things' became my friends.
trouble is, 'things' don't change with you.
yeah, i almost cried during toy story 3.
a lot.
ha.
Gods gift to me for...
my entire lifetime.
smiling.
living.
it's wonderful.
...this post sounds depressing.
it isn't.
okay, i cried, but i do miss some things, what can i say, haha!
No comments:
Post a Comment